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From Utterances to Speech Acts

By Mikhail Kissine

"Kissine offers a new theory of speech acts which is philosophically sophisticated and builds on work in cognitive science, formal semantics, and linguistic typology. This highly readable, brilliant essay is a major contribution to the field."

--François Recanati, Institut Jean-Nicod


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Book Information

   

Title: The Evaluability Hypothesis
Subtitle: The syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of polarity item licensing
Written By: Johan Brandtler
URL: http://benjamins.com/catalog/la.183
Series Title: Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 183
Description:

Although the field of polarity is well researched, this monograph offers a new take on polarity sensitivity that both challenges and incorporates previous theories. Based primarily on Swedish data, it presents new solutions to long- standing problems, such as the non-complementary distribution of NPIs and PPIs in yes/no-questions and conditionals, long distance licensing by superordinate elements, and the occurrence of polarity items in "wh"- questions. It is argued that polarity sensitivity can be understood in terms of "evaluability". Lacking any immediate predecessor in the literature, evaluability refers to the possibility of accepting or rejecting an utterance as true in a communicative exchange. Intriguingly, the evaluable status of a clause is shown to have syntactic correlates in Swedish, mirrored in the configuration of the C-domain. This book is of interest to scholars studying the interplay between syntax, semantics and pragmatics, particularly those working on negation and polarity.

Publication Year: 2012
Publisher: John Benjamins
Review: Become a Reviewer
BibTex: View BibTex record
Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics
Semantics
Syntax
Generative Linguistics
Subject Language(s): Swedish

Versions:
Format: Electronic
ISBN-13: 9789027274908
Prices: U.S. $ 149.00
Europe EURO 99.00
 
Format: Hardback
ISBN-13: 9789027255662
Prices: U.K. £ 99.00
Europe EURO 104.94
U.S. $ 149.00